spring break account, part one

Ever heard of reverse culture shock? It´s what happens when you go back to where you live from another place and it seems foreign. That´s how I feel returning from Belgium -- I knew it would happen, so I braced myself for the constant ¡¡¡HOLA WAPA QUE TAL UN BESITO Y TUS VACACCIONES DIME TODO!!! ...No punctuation necessary.

Mis vacacciones were excelente. I went with my roommates Becca, Claire and Michelle to Germany and Austria for 4 days (actually Michelle is a former roommate, but yeah), then I broke off from the group and went to Belgium to see family. I´ll start from the very beginning (a very good place to start):

FRANKFURT
The girls and I got into Frankfurt late on Friday the 3rd, from Seville. We started off the day, early, and took a bus to Seville in order to make our early afternoon flight to Germany. This may be too much info, but whatever: the bus always makes me feel queasy, and it was especially aggravating because I was getting over the worst of my stomach flu. The first few days in Germany were hell, and I stuck to eating pretzels (but I did cave and get some Starbucks, too, which I later regretted, that day). Anyway, we got into our Frankfurt hostel pretty late at night and just chilled in the main lobby room with people from all over the globe -- there was even an American guy there, so I chatted with him, a British guy, a German guy, and a whole bunch of Croatians...it was a total sausage fest, there was not one other girl apart from me and my roommates, so we got a ton of attention by default. I think some of those guys were on their 5th or 6th German beer and were definitely feeling it. So we just chatted with them, and the Croatian guys playing us some music and we sang with them. Becca and I took the main singing parts, since we´re constantly singing at ¨home.¨ It was fun. The not fun part was the mosquito infestation in our room. Claire and I were attacked with bugs, and I seriously looked like I had chicken pox on my arms and legs for the rest of the trip. I´m still completely red and scratching them, I think I must be allergic to the German bugs, or something. Anyway...

MUNICH

We left for Munich on Saturday morning, and I did my usual sleeping on the train thing, for probably 3 of the 4 hours on the trip. I possess the happy skill of being able to sleep anywhere in any configuration. We arrived in the early afternoon and settled into our hostel and went to get Starbucks. Being a former Starbucks employee, I had to impress my roommates with the complexity of my drink order (Iced triple grande caramel soy latte, please). I was so extremely caffeinated after that, I thought my already naturally jumpy legs would fall off from over exertion. I would say I have that weird ¨disease¨ restless leg syndrome, but it´s never bothered me. So...the Germans. I was immediately struck by how many blondes are in Germany and how tall everybody is. For the first time since I´ve been here, I felt like I fit in, height-wise (Spaniards, overall, are really short). German sounds really, really weird to my ear, so that was an adjustment. Lots of ¨k¨ sounds and such.
First, we went to an outdoor market and checked out enormous pickles and schnitzel and frankfurters and the like.

This was right after I had left my coat in a McDonald´s bathroom after being sick and forgetting to take it with me (woops). I was a bit upset, because it turns out it was stolen - I went back to the hostel to rest for a while and try not to yak while Becca kindly went back to ask for it. Frown Town. Anyway, once I felt a bit better, we went out again. We went to the Munich Olympic park, where the Olympics were held in 1972. Pretty awesome.

And the German police are total BAMF´s, as expected. They charged the girls and I 40€ fees for having the incorrect ticket on the train without any sympathy whatsoever that we´re tourists and don´t speak German. Fork over the money, ladies, was the vibe we got. Ironically, that was when we were on the way to check out the Dachau Concentration camp, so the image of nazis was fresh in our minds.

Dachau, as you´d imagine, was a rather intense way to start off the day. We got one of the audio guides, which I was responsible for holding and telling the girls about (being the journalist that I am, I´m always eager to know everything possible about a new place, not to mention I´m very interested in the history of the Holocaust). The atmosphere of Dachau is stark and creepy. We went into the rooms where the cremation ovens and poison gas were and we saw the bunkers where they slept. The audio guide had info about every area of the camp, including first person accounts from camp survivors and American camp liberators. Some of the info was told by a narrator, about people who were killed. Sad.

After that, we got back on the train (with the correct ticket) and we set off for a 4 hour bike tour around Munich....it was a great way of seeing all the key sites of the city in a relatively short period of time.

We got to stop in some of the main plazas and see a whole bunch of statues representing Bavaria with lions and the like. Our tour guide was this Hawaiian guy who was extremely funny and had us ring our bells and shout ¨mullet¨ every time we saw one. Unfortunately for Claire, who gave us the idea of going on the tour, a guy got a flat tire and we had to make an unexpected stop. The guide couldn´t fix it, so the guy ended up taking Claire´s bike, and Claire (being just over a hundred pounds and pretty short) was the unlucky one to have to sit on the front of the guide´s bike. ¨Is it too hard?¨ *wink* ...So ridiculous. We kept on keeping on and we went to an enormous beer garden where the beers and pretzels are bigger than your head.

When the tour was over, the girls and I went out with some people we had met on the tour to Hofbräuhaus, a famous beer house. I only had one more, and not even the entire thing, since I was pretty dehydrated, but fortunately, almost over my stomach flu.

Moving on...

SALZBURG
We set off for Austria the next morning, which was a short train ride just over the German border.

Salzburg is stunning -- the Alps, the chalets, the water, the snow, the buildings, the music...I love it all. I really want to go back and see more of Austria, especially Vienna.

The first day, after settling into our hostel, we were off on a tour of the sites in The Sound of Music film. I was in the musical in high school, so for me, it was pretty cool, if really cheesy. At least we got to see the great views of the city and hear more about the story of the real Von Trapp family rather than the syrupy sweet story you hear in the cheesy, cheesy musical.

The house used in the movie

An accurate depiction of both my feelings about The Sound of Music and how I was feeling when spring break started.

We met up with 2 guys from our hostel, and we went off on a self guided tour of the Salzburg to see the salt fortress and other sites around the city. The salt fortress was quite a hike, but the view made it all worth it, especially with the sunset.

The next morning, we went with those two guys (an American and an Australian) to see the Alps. We took a gondola up to the summit and hiked around. Stupid me, I wore the worst possible hiking shoes, so I had to hold hands with Zach and Russ, our two new friends, so I wouldn´t plummet to my death off the side of the guiderail-free Alps. I´m not afraid of heights, but I am afraid of being in traction-less shoes in hard snow when a cliff is involved. Way to go, Meg...

After that, we went on a mini boat tour that was included in our ¨Salzburg card¨ purchase which also had taken us up to the Alps. We went on the main river of Salzburg in a little motor boat and saw some awesome houses, narrated by some creepy recorded voice both in German and then played in English.

We went out for some drinks by the water after that. So pretty.

We also went to Mozart´s birthplace (also on the Salzburg card list of attractions). Ever since I saw the movie Amadeus, I was really interested in Mozart. The movie isn´t a completely accurate representation of his life, but it´s still really well done -- probably why it won best picture in 1984 and was nominated for a bazillion other awards. I love the villain in the movie, Salieri. Ironic they made him the villain, seeing how I´m pretty sure Mozart and Salieri didn´t interact, at all, in real life. Also, the movie showed that Mozart didn´t have siblings and that he only had 1 child, himself, when in reality, he had 6 (even though only 2 survived to adulthood).
Unfortunately, we weren´t allowed to take any photos of the house, which was so lame. There were tons of things I wanted photos of, including weird things like locks of Mozart´s hair. They also had his first violin as a little boy, and it was so small. There were lots of commissioned paintings of him and his family and examples of his own handwriting and the original copies of his music. I love Mozart operas, especially Le Nozze di Figaro and The Magic Flute. My dream would be to sing the Queen of the Night aria, someday -- I already practice it a lot, haha...

VIENNA
The next day was my last day -- I took the train to Vienna with the girls, and all I did there was take a short walk around the center, eat pizza, and go check out the Spanish Riding School of Vienna, with all the Lippazaner horses. Unfortunately, the tour the girls and I wanted to take was completely booked until 4 pm, which was too late for me to go to in order to make my flight to Brussels. Boo :-(. I´ll just have to go back someday, I guess.

Some nice Viennese lady took that picture for us.

OK, that´s about it for part one of my spring break...Belgium deserves its own post, especially since this one is already so long. Hasta ahora...